


In Every Star, I See Your Face

by JSevick



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Crazy Stupid Love, F/M, Grey's Anatomy - Freeform, I would hope these would be fun without knowing the source but who knows, One Shot Collection, One-Shots, Regency Romance, Scandal, X-men - Freeform, aka my specialty, all the olicity goodness in every world, gilmore girls - Freeform, having fun exploring AU ideas without the commitment, shamelessly stealing plots from other things, the mummy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-04-22 14:50:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4839530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JSevick/pseuds/JSevick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of AU one-shots exploring the beauty of Olicity in every world. </p><p>1 - The Mummy; 2 - Grey's Anatomy; 3 - Regency Romance; 4 - Scandal; 5 - Gilmore Girls; 6 - Crazy Stupid Love; 7 - X-Men</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Land of Sand and Blood [The Mummy]

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many ideas for fun little AU’s… but I simply cannot take on longer fics right now. So I’ve decided to write up little one-shots for them in a collection of AU fun—which I realized I haven’t written yet for Olicity, only “canon” (or spec, really). I can’t say I will never follow any of these up, but at this point, I am really not planning to. I hope you guys can still have fun with them! :)
> 
> And I’m playing pretty loose with the basics, here, just to warn any purists out there.

Felicity Smoak takes a deep breath as she steps over the compacted sand, following the stout little man into the courtyard of the prison, while ignoring the shouts and hollers from the inmates pressed against the bars. Fidgeting with her spectacles, and the pins digging through her blonde curls into her scalp, she crosses the yard towards an empty cell along one wall, as the man calls to the guards.

“Both of them?” the man asks her, his accent emphasizing each syllable.

“If both gentlemen were present when this item was confiscated, then yes, both of them,” she says, holding out the small metal puzzle box. When the man’s eyes spark with curiosity, she folds it back into the pocket of her leather bag, held tightly in front of her. “At the same time, preferably, as I have always found that to be most efficient in handling more than one man—that is, in conversation, of course, I would never… I do not even…”

She’s spared from further indignity by the door at the back of the cell opening with a clang, and two men are escorted out with their hands bound in front of them. Both are silent and stoic, faces fixed in blank expressions—and both possessing large, muscular frames. One man has darker skin, black hair shorn close to his head, stern dark eyes that are assessing her warily and looking more and more amused by the moment.

But it is the other man who captures her attention, and for once, she falls completely silent.

The piercing blue eyes are set beneath slightly arched eyebrows drawn down into a frown, the chiseled lines of his face edged with a dusting of stubble across his square jaw. As he steps slowly towards the bars of the cell, she takes in his height and broad shoulders, the breadth of his arms emerging from the wrinkled shirt with torn sleeves.

He is perhaps the most rugged and unkempt man she has ever seen… and her blood heats beneath her skin, forcing her to duck her head lest he see the flush across her cheeks.

“What is this about?” the first man asks, as both men are now standing in front of her.

And she is finally reminded of why she is here—not to ogle filthy… handsome… large… _prisoners_ —but to get answers, she tells herself firmly as she snaps her head up, eyes flickering between them both.

“My name is Felicity Smoak, from the Museum of Antiquities,” she says, as both men watch her closely. She digs into her bag and pulls out the puzzle box, holding it out in front of her, and noticing the way that the blue-eyed man’s gaze narrows. “This was brought to us after being, um, claimed from your persons following the… incident, I suppose, I’ve always considered that to be a fairly neutral term for unpleasant events, such as being arrested in a drunken brawl, not that… I would know…”

The first man is outright smirking now, but the blue-eyed man just watches her silently.

“And I was wondering if you could tell me anything more about it?” she asks.

“No,” the blue-eyed man says. His tone is quiet, but firm.

“I… I beg your pardon?”

“We don’t know anything about it,” he says, and then the harsh lines of his face soften as he adds, “I’m sorry.”

“But—but you could at least tell me where you found it?” Felicity steps closer to the bars, even as the stout guard shifts restlessly at her side. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but this puzzle box contained a map to the lost city of Hamunaptra, an archaeological find that would have an inestimable impact on the field—well, not _inestimable_ , I could estimate that it would mean a great deal to the studies of mummification, not to mention changing the course of my career forever… I’d like to see the Bembridge Scholars try and reject me after I-”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats.

She blinks and frowns, trying not to pout at the disappointment, as the stout little man beside her signals to the guards to fetch the two men.

“I’m not finished,” she tells him, though her mind is racing to figure out what to ask next, because this amazing find that dropped into her lap _cannot_ be nothing more than a dead end…

The first man leans closer to the second and mutters, “Oliver, maybe we-”

“John,” the blue-eyed man hisses to silence him, but it’s too late.

Because now Felicity knows exactly who this man is… Oliver Queen. The wealthy American lost five years in the desert, recently returned to civilization, though apparently yet to return home. And now facing the noose in a Cairo jail.

“This could be a chance—your mother did not send me here to let you-” John is continuing, unfazed by Oliver’s glare.

“Mr. Queen,” Felicity interrupts, nearly dropping the puzzle box as she reaches out to grab the bars of the cell. “You… _you_ were at Hamunaptra—I mean, it was never stated in the papers, otherwise you would have been crawling with Egyptologists, but if you had this box and given your history… I suppose you’ll have one Egyptologist on you now—not… not _on_ you, that is not what I meant, of course, though you’re very—no, stop… I don’t mean anything… untoward…”

At least half of that mortifying speech was muttered under her breath to herself, but when she looks up, Oliver Queen is smiling. Or, at least, one half of his lips is twitching upwards, one eyebrow lifting, and she has to bite her own lip to keep from disgracing herself with any further praises of his being.

Then he sighs, expelling a breath as he briefly closes his eyes, as John smirks at them both.

“Yes, I was,” he says finally, lifting his eyes to stare into her own, and she can see the undertone of pain lying behind them. “But I will not help you find it.”

“Don’t you realize the value of the history out there waiting to be discovered?” she asks, her voice going low and almost breathy with desperation. “The Book of Amun-Ra, the Book of the Dead, countless other priceless discoveries—and it’s not about the money, at least not for me, and I’d imagine not for you either, but a connection to the history of civilization itself… Did you know that Chinese travelers from the Silk Road even prized it highly enough to name it, calling it Lian Yu-”

“Purgatory,” Oliver says, translating the Chinese without a thought. And she hears the truth of that name in his rough tone.

She feels a pang of sympathy, because perhaps she’s asking more of this man than she knows. “I wouldn’t ask you to return, as I do understand… If you could just tell me its exact location, I will go-”

“ _Absolutely not_.”

Felicity almost stumbles back half a step at the severe expression on his face. When his eyes sweep across her and note her uncertain fear, he takes a breath and retreats back into calm.

“Ms. Smoak, Hamunaptra is not safe,” Oliver says, solemnly. “It should be left alone.”

“But it won’t be,” she says, trying her best not to sound whiny. “A group of American explorers have already hired a man named Malcolm Merlyn to take them out there, but they won’t let me-”

She stops talking as a moment of true rage flits over Oliver’s face, before being stifled behind those searing eyes.

Then he looks back at John, and says in a low voice, “We need to get out of here.”

“I won’t argue with you there, man,” John replies.

“Perhaps I could help you with that,” Felicity says, as both men turn to look at her. “ _If_ you agree to take me to Hamunaptra.”

For a long moment, she and Oliver just stare at one another, eyes locked through the bars of his cell. She resists the urge to fiddle with her spectacles under the weight of that intent gaze, instead lifting her chin and smiling back in challenge. The collar of her shirt sticks to the damp sweat along her throat, brought on by the dry heat, and she’s sure the pile of curls atop her head are wilting down around her forehead. But she is no delicate flower… she is a _librarian_.

And this man, wrists shackled before him in chains, smudges of dirt and sand across his ravaged clothing, veins snaking down his arms as his fists clench, holds the key to everything she has worked for. Perhaps there are a few other things she’d like him to hold…

When his eyebrows grow up and John snorts, she realizes she said some element of that out loud, and she thinks they’ll need to find the Book of the Dead in order to resurrect her.

“So, Mr. Queen, do we have a deal?” she asks once she recovers, though her cheeks are still burning and pink.

He shares a look with John, who just shrugs with a small smile, and then Oliver Queen is standing right in front of her, inches away, looking down through the bars and tilting his head slightly to the side.

“I suppose we do,” he says, voice deep, and she’s not sure if the sudden thrill up her spine is triumph or… something much less proper.

She grins up at him, startling a new confusion into his eyes as he blinks, but she’s already stepping away. “Then I shall see you both on the docks tomorrow morning,” she calls back over her shoulder, approaching the stout little warden of the prison across the yard, preparing negotiations in her mind.

And already thinking beyond… to nights upon the river and crossing the desert on a camel’s back and unearthing the secrets of time from beneath the earth… to her name on the cover of a book in the library and a celebratory dinner with the Bembridge Scholars and reading hieroglyphs etched into ancient stone… to moonlit tents and a heated breeze and blue eyes beneath a sky full of stars… Before she has even freed Oliver Queen and his friend John from the prison, she’s already planning out their fateful journey…

Into the land of sand and blood. 


	2. Call Me in the Morning [Grey's Anatomy]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity's new internship is full of... complications.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another AU one-shot! I’m working on ways to make these satisfying in and of themselves, and not just endless fic-teases, but I’m not sure how… so we’ll see.

Felicity lifts her drool-stained cheek from the fabric of the couch cushion, blinking open her eyes slowly in the early morning light, realizing with an onrushing wave of varying emotions that she’s completely naked.

And that the man lying on the floor beside the couch is just as bare…

But she quickly gropes for the glasses that at some point tumbled onto the hardwood floor, because that size and shape and… _definition_ cannot be right. She could not have brought _that_ home from the bar last night, and clearly had too much fun with… _all_ of that, and then _forgotten_ about it.

Her own brain cannot have betrayed her like that.

“Ugh, stupid, beautiful alcohol,” she mutters under her breath as she slips her glasses onto her face and winces through her headache—because she’s pretty sure alcohol is the only reason this… man (the term somehow seems inadequate in this moment) ended up here.

He’s lying on a pillow and the threadbare rug, on his stomach, the breadth and musculature of his back like an artist’s rendering in the shafts of sunlight falling through the window. A thin, ratty blanket lies over him, but as he grumbles and starts to wake, she realizes she has _nothing_.

She’s not exactly eager to display, in full daylight, what copious amounts of alcohol and darkness somehow made attractive enough to snag _this_ guy last night. So she reaches down and rips the blanket off his skin, startling an intake of breath from him as he squirms in the cold air—

And she tries not to stare at what is, in her newly minted medical opinion, _perfection_. With a flash of guilt and shyness, she tosses one of the throw pillows from the couch onto the glorious curves of his backside. As it lands, he finally lifts his head, grumbling in groggy confusion.

The scars… she remembers, actually. Hard to forget, she supposes, but it’s not the scars themselves, or the fact that he has so many (a tour overseas, he said vaguely, and they weren’t exactly in the state of mind to poke at each other’s traumas… poking at _other_ things, though…)—it’s the fact that he didn’t seem to mind her rambling medical explanations of the wounds and awkward questions about impaired functions (none, thank _God_ ) and her stumbling offer of massage therapy for scar tissue blockage.

In fact, she remembers, in one of the clearest memories of the night, the way he smiled up at her from beneath her touch like he was surprised by her—in a good way. That isn’t the most common response to her verbal fumblings, and even if she can recall nothing else, that is something she will treasure.

He turns to look at her, then, blinking and taking her in, and she huddles behind the blanket while wondering how— _how_ —that face and that body can go together and somehow end up here in her house. Is this a graduation present from the universe? It’s way better than the used car her mom got her.

For a moment, they stare at each other, both unsure what to say first. Felicity knows if she starts talking, she’ll ruin everything, so she just clutches the blanket to her chest and blinks.

“Morning,” he says, voice deep and husky with sleep, lips curving slightly—and she has a sudden flash of remembering where those lips have been, and the scrape of that stubble against…

She might squeak. She’s not sure, because her mind just sort of shuts down for a second, but when she’s back he’s just smiling wider.

“Um, good morning,” she says, softly because noise _hurts_ , and then she realizes she might not be the only one feeling this way. “Are you okay? I mean, like, are you hungover? Because I can get you a glass of water and some ibuprofen or something, whatever your cure is—I wish there was a real, official cure, you know? I’m a doctor, so I feel like I should be able to invent one, but so far, nothing… I’m going to start working on that immediately.”

“No, I’m alright,” he says, keeping his voice as quiet as hers, and goddammit, on top of everything else he’s _nice_. “I didn’t drink that much last night.”

“I… what?”

He grins at her. “But you did, so maybe I should be getting you something.” Then he’s standing, and her mind nearly explodes as she tries to decide whether or not to look (because this may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and technically he _did_ already show her, it’s not her fault her mind is evil and her usually flawless memory has abandoned her in her time of need)—but before she focuses enough to choose, he’s whipped the pillow from his back around in front of him.

There’s still plenty to look at, though, and she might be gaping.

“Oh, uh, no, I’m okay,” she says, tearing her eyes away so she doesn’t make it awkward by staring at his scars and tattoos (and the muscles beneath them)—and that’s when she sees the clock on the mantlepiece and leaps up from the couch, blanket held precariously around her. “Oh my God, is that what time it is? I’m going to be late. My first day, and I’m going to be late. I can’t believe this—I mean, I’m _never_ late—how do I tell my new bosses I’m late because of my sex-addled brain and the unbelievably hot naked guy in my living room? Wait, I did not say that out loud. You did not hear that.”

The hot naked guy expels a startled laugh, with a quick shake of his head. “I’m always late,” he says, by way of ignoring her just as she asked.

“Well, yeah, you’re…” She waves a hand in his general direction. “People will wait for that. Not this.” She points a vague finger at herself, scrambling around the arm of the couch towards the hallway.

“I respectfully disagree,” he says quietly, so that she’s not sure if she was supposed to hear that, and she can’t even begin to parse through what that means even if she did. Instead, she focuses on making sure the blanket pinned beneath her armpits falls low enough on her thighs all the way around.

“I’m so sorry, I never do things like this, but I have to go—like, right now,” she says, backing towards the stairs. “You know, with clothes, preferably. I think people would probably take their doctor more seriously with clothes on. Maybe not in nudist colonies, but are there even doctors there? Or do they go to regular doctors? I bet it’s easier for them since they’re used to-”

“Felicity,” he says after another nearly soundless chuckle—and after the pleasant shock that he remembers her name, she decides she needs the sound of her name in his voice as her ringtone _immediately_. “It’s okay—go.”

She hesitates for a moment, wondering what the protocol here is, wondering what she really wants. Should she give him her phone number, or is that too forward (even after last night; she wasn’t lying when she said she never does things like this)? Should she offer him food from her kitchen, or shoo him out the door?

Should she ask his name, or is that way too awkward at this point, even for her?

And then she remembers the incredibly competitive internship that she fought so long and so hard for—and that she’s about to be late to on her first day. Her mom would tell her to relax and maybe put her social life first for once… but Felicity is not, and never will be, her mother.

“Okay, well, um, it was really… I mean, I had a… Thanks for all the… I’m sorry, bye!”

She hurries up the stairs, not looking back, because if she looks back at the naked man standing in her living room with a frilly red pillow clutched in front of his hips… She just might stop caring about work, about everything else but inviting him up into the shower with her.

So she shuts herself in her room, and she only leans against the wooden door for a brief second, and she doesn’t flinch when she hears the front door shut behind him.

And she tells herself it’s better that she doesn’t know his name. He’s the magical naked unicorn of her dreams, a gift from the fickle universe after all her hard work—or maybe a test of her resolve, her determination, her seriousness about this whole doctor thing.

“I want to _be_ a doctor, not just play doctor with hot naked strangers…” she says to herself, with her eyes squeezed shut.

So she can’t see her lying face in the mirror.

XXXXX

The first day of her surgical internship is… about as hectic as she expects it to be. But she’s already made friends among her fellow interns—Barry and Caitlin and Curtis—and she even had a pretty positive interaction with the Cardio Attending, John Diggle. She’s not sure about her Resident, Sara Lance, but Felicity suspects there might be a softness under that tough exterior and wry smile.

So when she’s sent to consult with the Neuro Attending on the Katie Bryce case, Felicity is feeling more confident and together than she thought she would.

And then she looks across the room for Dr. Queen.

“Oh, _frak_ ,” she says, louder than she intended since she draws multiple stares… including his.

It’s a lot to take in—those broad shoulders straining the white lab coat, the dusting of stubble across his square jaw, those piercing blue eyes fixed on her and blinking in surprise… then softening into a smile, and before she can do anything else, she’s turning and disappearing through the door.

Well, now she knows his name, at least.

Oliver Queen. The top neurosurgeon in the city, maybe one of the best in the country—back from his dramatic and somewhat mysterious tour with the Medical Corps to teach at the hospital his family _founded_ …

The hospital where his one-night-stand just started her surgical internship.

Felicity is almost to the stairwell, in full denial even though she realizes she still needs that consult at some point, when she hears rapid footsteps behind her.

Then the sound of her name, in that unfair voice, urgently but quietly—“Felicity! Fe-li-ci-ty.”

She spins on her heel so quickly that her ponytail whips across her cheek, and Oliver Queen is slamming to a stop right in front of her, so that she has to tilt her head up to meet his gaze straight on. There are so many feelings swimming through her, and she can’t even begin to decide which one is best and which one is worst (is it the embarrassment? The sense of her career swirling down a toilet filled with cosmopolitans? Or the tingling sense of relief and hope that flickers to life inside her, even when she’s screaming at herself to stop that immediately?).

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she hisses, because apparently embarrassed anger is what she’s going with. “I said I was a doctor about eight thousand times, and you never said—I mean, to be fair, maybe you did and I just don’t remember, and oh God, you’re my _boss_ —no, you’re my _boss’s boss_ , and I-”

“Felicity,” he says again, hand wrapping gently around her arm, and she stares down at it. “Come on, let’s talk in here.”

He pulls her into the empty stairwell, peering over the railing to the other levels, and she really thinks there must be better places for a secret rendezvous than an open stairwell—and this is _not_ a secret rendezvous, goddammit, because that is _not_ what is happening here, get it together _…_

_“_ …And I just said all of that out loud, didn’t I?” she says, weakly, as he shakes his head with another grin. His hand slides over her arm in a caress as it falls away.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything, I just…” He frowns, sighing. “It was nice to talk to someone who didn’t know who I was.”

“I _do_ know—I mean, you’re… _you_.” She’s trying to shake the bewilderment from her usually much more reliable brain (it has betrayed her several times over in the last twenty four hours, and she wonders if it’s punishment for all the alcohol she poured into it). “I just… I’ve seen your name on papers and journal articles, but I’m new to Starling City, and how— _how_ —did I never see your picture? I feel like this was a great injustice of the universe—except now I’ve seen a lot more than a picture, and that’s… Oh my God, you’ve seen me naked. Which you know. You’ve done more than see me, and I—I’m going to stop talking, at some point, whenever you’re kind enough to stop me, because I-”

He reaches out to touch her shoulder, and she falls silent.

“It’s okay, relax,” he says softly, and the press of his thumb against her collarbone sparks other memories soaked in the haze of alcohol and lust, and she feels a warm flush fill her cheeks.

“This can’t happen,” she says, and she realizes the note of mourning in her voice might be decidedly one-sided. “Not that ‘this’ is happening, not that there’s even a ‘this,’ but I just—you’re my boss, and I worked too hard to get here… although you’re really… No, stopping, now.”

“I would never want to jeopardize your career,” he says, as his hand slides up to the side of her neck, and that’s really not fair, because she’s tipping her head into his grasp before she even realizes it. “But I _am_ happy to see you again.”

And he’s staring into her eyes, his own intent and searing into her, as his head tilts forward slowly. She’s flooded with memories of last night—of her tipsy babbling to the hot stranger beside her at the bar, and his surprised smile, and the skim of his fingertips up her back as the crowd pressed them together, and the first kiss beneath the neon sign on the brick wall outside, and the hot tangle of breaths as they stumbled together through her front door… and only made it to the couch.

She’s kissing him then, any willpower she might once have claimed decimated in his presence, the rasp of stubble across her chin only emphasizing the softness of his lips against hers. One of his hands still cradles the side of her face, while the other slips around her waist, and then those magnificent arms are curled around her, anchoring her to reality.

To this amazing, bewildering, _impossible_ reality.

Her own hands clench the lapels of his lab coat tightly, pulling him down towards her as she gasps into his mouth and fights back a shaky moan.

The metal clang of a door opening one level down, and the echo of voices coupled with footsteps across the linoleum tile, douses them both with cold water as they tear apart from each other. She likes to think he seems a bit more reluctant to let her go, because when she lunges forward to wipe the smears of pink lipstick from around his lips, a look of relieved anticipation crosses his face. When she pulls back again, he settles into a serious expression.

“Felicity…”

“No. Nope. No more,” she says, to the voice and the face and the lips and… all of it. To this man and the grenade to her career that he represents. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Oliver.”

It’s the first time she says his name, and she’s torn between reacting to the way it feels on her lips—or the heated expression that fills his eyes.

But the people walking up the stairs from below are almost at the turn towards their level, and she forces herself to turn away and walk to the door. As she opens it, she peeks back and sees Oliver running a frustrated hand over his jaw, turning to grip the railing and stare out the window. The strain of the lab coat sleeves around his arms nearly breaks her resolve.

She takes a deep breath and steps through the door, shutting it firmly behind her and leaning against it for just a moment.

“Oh, _frak_ …” she mutters, because her internship just go so much… more difficult. Not harder. Can’t be harder, no matter how much she might want…

“I need a cold shower,” she says, throwing one hand over her forehead. “Stat.”

It’s forty-five minutes before she works up the nerve to get that consult for Katie Bryce, who really shouldn’t suffer for Felicity’s complicated life.

Of course, she finds Dr. Oliver Queen… in the on-call room, in a… bed.

Well, it’s better than her creaky old living room couch, she tells herself.

And she’s a doctor now, a _real_ doctor, saving lives and everything.

She’s earned it. 


	3. A Strumpet for Crumpets [Regency Romance]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miss Felicity Smoak has never enjoyed attending balls... until this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This AU has no rhyme or reason–and is based more on silly Regency romance novels than anything serious or classic. Plus etiquette and introductions and reality of any sort is just… not what this is. But I did get to use the word “pantaloons.” So there’s that. :) Enjoy!

It is an unfortunate and yet rarely spoken reality that balls are insufferably dull, unless one is actively in search of a beau (and reasonably assured of finding one) or there is a scandal to be had—preferably, something distant enough not to affect one’s own prospects, yet near enough to be easily overheard and commented upon.

“Of course, I have no prospects to speak of, destined as I am to be an old spinster,” Felicity Smoak says, wondering if a flap of her fan would put too much emphasis upon her dramatic sigh.

Though, of course, she’s only speaking to the curtains.

It’s a wonder she even managed an invitation to the private ball, but then her mother is nothing if not determined—and eagerly traversing the widow’s circuit while consoling the older lords who lost first wives to childbirth. Her mother’s second (short and ill-fated) marriage to a wealthy businessman was just enough to gain them access to the next tier, and now she will not be satisfied until Felicity has married a lord.

“Just find one of the third or fourth sons, dear,” her mother said, while directing the seamstress to lower the neckline on her garish red dress well beyond propriety. “And must you wear those dreadful spectacles?”

“If I wish to see, Mother,” Felicity said wearily. “Which, I must say, I would prefer, lest I trip and fall into Lord Cromden’s lap. Again.”

“I thought he might propose right then and there!” her mother said with her tinkling laugh, and Felicity twirled on her heel to leave the room, deliberately choosing her plainest muslin dress for the ball.

Which is perhaps one reason she is left to linger in an alcove along one wall, watching the dancers spin through the candlelight, listening to the string quartet fill the room with delicate music, just soft enough to preserve the hum of conversation.

She passes the time lamenting the abysmal spread of what is meant to be food, she supposes, and planning out her life. Perhaps she could work in a little shop, selling books if she is fortunate, selling ribbons if she is not; or she could chaperone for younger and more rebellious young ladies, though at the moment she’d be more likely to encourage them towards mutiny and licentiousness if they have the chance.

She would toss her virtue to the first applicant if he could provide a moment’s diversion from this elegant torture.

The energy in the room changes suddenly, an awed hush that shudders across her skin as everyone turns towards the doorway into the hall.

At first, Felicity sees only a pretty young woman, wearing an exquisite blue gown that cuts demurely beneath a neck wreathed in jewels, brown curls spilling around them and over her bare collarbone. Her smile is properly reserved, but her eyes spark with a mischief that Felicity immediately approves of.

“Lady Thea Queen,” mutters a man to his companion, standing several feet from Felicity’s alcove, and there is a touch of salacious interest in his tone.

“I should be careful if I were you,” his companion says, and he nods his head towards a figure trailing Lady Thea into the room. “For that is her brother with her…”

The Duke of Verdant.

_This_ , then, is the reason for the wave of excitation that still holds sway over the room—Lord Oliver Queen, Duke of Verdant, recently discovered after being lost at sea for five years, returned to reclaim his father’s title from some unfortunate cousin. Between the legends of his scandalous history before the fateful journey, and the mystery surrounding those five tragic years, he is a figure of immense notoriety at every event he attends.

And he singlehandedly makes this ball that much more interesting for her.

Not only for the simple stimulation he brings to the proceedings by virtue of his presence, either. For there is… another sort of stimulation he provides, she thinks when he fully enters the room, and she knows it is only by the disgraceful comportment of her mother that she is even aware such a form of stimulation exists.

But even if she weren’t aware, she has a feeling Lord Oliver Queen would introduce her to the concept.

His shoulders are entirely too broad beneath his tailcoat, and the firmly muscled flesh of his torso strains the buttons of his waistcoat, above breeches that provide an education all their own. The shadow of hair across his square jaw is _shocking_ , with the careless ruggedness only a duke could showcase in polite society, and the disheveled cravat around his throat bespeaks an impatience with the entire affair that she sympathizes with immediately.

Piercing blue eyes sweep the room beneath a frowning brow, and Felicity is torn between seeking out the intent focus of those eyes or hiding behind the nearby curtains, safe from their sharp judgment. But they do not fall on her, settling instead on others among the hesitant crowd, as he moves purposefully towards a young wedded couple staring somewhat sheepishly back. She dimly remembers them as Lord Thomas Merlyn and his new wife, Laurel; perhaps he knew them in his former life.

The ball resumes, slowly, and any accord she felt with the crowd dissipates as all return to their own prospects and indiscretions. Felicity hears her mother’s indecent laughter ringing from a chaise lounge in the next room, and she wonders if she really would be better off _behind_ the curtain she has befriended.

She realizes she spoke this final thought aloud (including telling the velvet drape it has been a pleasure to make its “tapestried acquaintance”) when she hears the huff of amusement behind her.

Slowly, she turns, to find that halfway through walking past her Lord Oliver Queen has stopped, and there is no hiding from that forceful gaze now—though up close, she finds the blue eyes soft and warm, not fierce or frightful.

With a lurch at her complete lack of propriety (or anyone to introduce her), Felicity makes a half-stumbling curtsey and then makes the disastrous mistake of opening her mouth.

“Your Grace,” she says, fairly certain that’s the address for a duke. But she has to add, because when has she ever left a thought unsaid, “I believe this is my first time addressing a duke, and I must say, I find the title quite perplexing. Are all dukes meant to be graceful? Not to imply that you are not, of course, but I should think that some might prefer another description—Your Prominence? Your Brilliance? Your… Virility?”

She trails off as his face curls into an incredulous smile, and she is torn between mortification that may just sear off her skin… and a flutter of her heartbeat that is wholly inappropriate to this moment.

“I have never given it much thought,” he says, and his voice is gentler than she would expect from such a powerful, _potent_ man. His smile does not diminish, and he has turned in his stride to give her the entirety of his attention. “I do not believe we have met.”

“No, I have never had the pleasure—and it would be, I mean it _is_ , a pleasure that is, though a perfectly respectable one, of course, why should it not be…” She closes her eyes behind her spectacles, as though removing him from her sight could restore her addled mind for a moment, and when she reopens them he is only smiling more broadly. “Miss Felicity Smoak,” she adds weakly.

“Miss Smoak,” he says, with a bow of his head, and she has a sudden powerful (and very unseemly) desire to hear her first name on his lips, when that will never come to pass. “How are you enjoying this evening?”

“Not at all,” she says, with a sigh she cannot contain. “Quite intolerable. And they do not even have the decency to provide proper nourishment—I should be grateful for a crumpet, by this point of desperation.”

“A crumpet? Desperate indeed,” he murmurs, in a low tone that shivers through her pantaloons. “Perhaps I could request something for you?”

“Oh, no, that would be too much.” She shakes her head firmly; she cannot be sending the Duke of Verdant out to order around servants on her behalf. Well, she _could_ , but it would be entirely too much like her mother’s antics, and that is one thing she will not abide.

“Then perhaps I could simply request a dance?”

“From whom?” she blurts out, provoking another blinding grin, and she realizes with a flush of her cheeks that he was asking _her_. “Oh, well, that is… quite… I must say…”

She’s not sure what is more disconcerting—that a duke (a handsome, _enthralling_ duke) is asking her to dance, or that _this_ duke, who _does not_ dance (at least, that is what all the papers say), is asking her. Or perhaps most shocking of all, that Felicity Smoak, who finds balls to be a scourge upon her life, quite suddenly has never wanted anything more.

“Was there an affirmative in there somewhere?” he asks softly, looking slightly uncertain, and it is not an expression that belongs on this man’s face. How could such a man ever doubt a woman’s affection?

And yet he is looking at _her_ with that vulnerable gaze, and she says too loudly, “Yes! That is… I mean, there is. An affirmative. Very affirmative. Though not too affirmative, nothing improper, of course.”

He expels a breath through his smile, shaking his head, and those blue eyes are lit with what she might dare call… affection. Or perhaps merely pity. Undoubtedly that, she tells herself firmly, and thankfully not aloud.

“The next song, then,” he says, and it is only then she notices the swirling dresses and regimented dancing behind him—the rest of the room, that she had somehow forgotten completely in that moment. “And I would consider it an honor to seek out a crumpet for you.”

The smile that quirks his lips is nearly smug, erasing all vulnerability except from his eyes, which still linger upon her quite unfairly.

“It would be my honor to eat anything you provide, Your Grace,” she says, and he blinks.

She really should have paid more attention when her mother taught her how to swoon. A bold, dramatic swoon, past the floor and into the ground, would be just the thing in this moment.

Yet apparently those five years at sea dislodged a great deal of his sense, for he does not give her the cut direct or walk away.

He merely laughs and grins again.

And Felicity Smoak considers the many unacknowledged virtues of a well-attended ball.

As the Duchess of Verdant, she even grows to love them. At least, she finds someone better to converse with than the curtains.

And she has all the crumpets she desires. 


	4. Cursed from the Start [Scandal]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newly elected Mayor Oliver Queen has a secret that could destroy his political career… and her name is Felicity Smoak. [Scandal AU One-shot]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little bit angsty with this one, guys. And I really wanted the title to be that whole line from Banks’ “Waiting Game”–”What if the way we started made it something cursed from the start?”
> 
> I also deliberately did not name a certain character so it can be whoever you prefer, or an OC. No character hate here.

She knew he would be there—she told herself that had nothing to do with why she chose the couture gown with the slit up her thigh just where his fingertips had teased her, and the strappy high heels that had torn a hole in the back of his pant legs, and the perfume slicked over her neck where the tip of his nose once dragged across her throat, inhaling her—but when their eyes finally meet across the room, it crashes through her entire body unexpectedly, a strike of lightning thundering in her blood.

How had she thought she was prepared for this?

Felicity closes her eyes and takes a long sip of the champagne in her hand, feeling the sparkling tingle against her tongue, as though each popping bubble can erase the taste of him. But when she pulls the empty glass from her lips and opens her eyes again, he’s crossing the room towards her.

And his eyes are as piercing and inescapable as she remembers.

She fidgets but forces herself to stay in place, calmly placing the champagne flute with the smudge of pink lipstick on the tray of a waiter passing by. The room is full of the mingling elite, discussing stock options and pending legislation and getaways to the coast with equal amounts of shallow politesse and calculating power. Felicity Smoak is not one of them—no sprawling mansion, no personal staff, no trailing paparazzi; when she shrugs her shoulders, the world does not move.

But when the elite drown in scandals of their own making, when the vicious swarm of the internet turns against them, they call her—they _beg_ her. And she handles it.

If only she had stopped herself from handling Oliver Queen.

He stops just in front of her, looking down at her with that stern expression holding back the emotions she can see fighting behind his eyes, waiting expectantly for her to give him some sign, _anything_ … She just stares resolutely back at him, hoping the quickening of her breath and the pounding of her heart remains hidden beneath her skin.

“How are you this evening, Mr. Mayor?” she asks, keeping her tone flat rather than snide. She wishes she still had the champagne flute, to give her hands something to do other than itch to reach out towards him. She smoothes them absentmindedly down the silky fabric of her gown, and when she sees his eyes drop to follow their path around her hips, she looks away from his face. His ridiculous face…

“Felicity,” he murmurs, voice low, and her eyes snap back to his. That’s not fair, he can’t _do_ that, not now, not _here_.

She opens her mouth to tell him so, forgetting her surroundings entirely, when the white blast of a flashbulb nearly blinds her. Felicity jolts back to herself, making sure she’s not anywhere near touching him, that her hands have stayed at her side and the space between them is appropriate for professional acquaintances. The look Oliver turns on the photographer eagerly snapping photos of them is a cold frown, but warms to his political smile quickly enough, as he answers the man’s requests for a front page spread.

Oliver Queen is one of the best politicians she’s ever worked with, able to turn charming and sociable in an instant, with a core of strong principles and a heroic love for this city that he isn’t faking. Helping him win the mayoral office was one of the easiest jobs she’s worked on, even with his wild youth to compensate for.

But she found she preferred the man who sat alone in the dark of his office after a long day of campaigning, broad shoulders hunched, profile serious as he looked through paperwork and police reports, as he stayed up all night telling her in a soft voice about his plans to help this city.

It’s the involuntary smile that would briefly break through the harsh lines of his face, the huffed breath and shake of his head and softening of his warm blue eyes, the unexpected grin at something she’d accidentally said (one of the many reasons she is not a politician herself)… That is the smile she sees when she closes her eyes at night.

A part of her she has ruthlessly buried is glad that is not the smile everyone will see on the front page of the paper tomorrow, that it is a smile few have ever seen.

Because it is _hers_ …

Except it isn’t.

Felicity is about to step away when the photographer turns to her, asking the spelling of her name in case he runs the photo of both of them. Her first instinct is to tell him to delete the photo, because whatever he may have captured between them, it should _not_ be seen by the entire city—but she knows enough to realize that will only taste like blood in the water to him, so she calmly spells out her name. The photo of Oliver standing alone in his sharply tailored suit, smiling through the neatly trimmed stubble on his jaw, will be the photo they’ll run, she’s sure of it.

“And your relationship to the Mayor?” the photographer asks, pen poised over his notepad.

She hopes her hesitation doesn’t reveal the way that question cuts her open, but she manages to mumble out the word, “Colleagues.”

At the same time Oliver says firmly, “A friend.”

Felicity inhales a sharp breath rather than glare at him, since the photographer has looked up from his notepad and is glancing back and forth between them. But she forces a smile to her face, as if to say of course they are friends, who wouldn’t be friends with Oliver Queen?

“I was just about to ask Ms. Smoak for a dance, if you would excuse us,” Oliver says, his tone polite and casual with a politician’s forced charm, but his eyes never leave her face—and there is nothing false about the emotion in them.

With the photographer watching them, just interested enough to make a refusal awkward, Felicity has no choice but to smile and say, “Of course, I would love to.”

When his large palm curls around her delicate fingers, leading her towards the swirling couples and through the bright and glittering crowd, she can’t help the way her hand clenches with her thumb brushing across the back of his knuckles. His hand seizes tight around hers, as though he will never let her go.

They reach the center of the dance floor, twisting towards each other with their hands still intertwined. She lifts her hand to his shoulder to hold him at a distance, bracing herself against the solid muscles beneath the smooth fabric of his suit sleeve. As his free hand settles against her waist, fingertips pulling slightly at the fabric in his grip, with heat flushing over her skin beneath the all-too-thin silk of her gown, she finally lets herself glare up at him.

“What do you think you are doing?” she whispers sharply, hoping only he can hear her beneath the floating strains of the string quartet. “Whatever it is, stop doing it immediately, and stop dragging me into this because I don’t want to do it with you… And yes, I realize how that sounds, but it’s still true.”

Oliver’s face twists into that spontaneous smile as he tugs her into the swaying motion of the dance, and her anger deflates, replaced by a piercing sadness.

She should not have come here; she didn’t need to do this to herself.

He must see the pain in her eyes because his smile falters, and he leans in to say softly, “Felicity, I just wanted to talk.”

“This isn’t talking,” she says.

They’ve fallen into the rhythm of the dance, feet moving in perfect sync over the hardwood floor, her tiny painted toes bared by the straps of her heels between his shiny black dress shoes. And his fingers have slid towards the open back of her dress, rough fingertips ghosting across her bare skin as though he’s struggling not to allow himself the touch. It still brands her skin with a forbidden heat, shivering up her spine and pooling in her belly.

Her hand digs into the side of his broad bicep, and when she lets herself look up into his earnest face, his chiseled features are blurring through a wave of unwanted tears. He blinks, concern filling his eyes as he frowns, and if she doesn’t escape this, the tears will drag her make-up down her cheeks and _that_ is the photo they will run.

So when someone cuts in and starts asking for “Mayor Queen,” Felicity takes the startled slack in his hands and rips herself away from him, darting quickly through the crowd to find air beyond the cloying cologne and fake laughs.

She’s only halfway down the empty hallway of the hotel, through the unused conference rooms and banquet halls, when she hears his rapid footsteps behind her. She won’t run from him—she could never run from him, that has always been her problem—but she sees the people milling against the walls up ahead and ducks into the nearest doorway.

It’s a small, shadowy conference room, with a single long table surrounded by chairs, and filled with the scent of lemon polish and recycled air. Her slightly ragged breaths echo in the empty space, and then the door is opening again behind her, and she spins around to face him.

The door closes behind him, leaving them in darkness broken only by moonlight through the blinds, and still his eyes somehow shine with the intensity of his gaze as he approaches her. Felicity stumbles back until the tops of her thighs hit the edge of the conference table, and she lifts one hand weakly in front of her, stopping his advance with a touch against his chest. The blue silk tie beneath her palm is one she picked out for him.

“Oliver…” she gasps, and it’s the first time she’s said his name since she left.

Like a spell lighting them both on fire, the word ends with his lips capturing hold of hers, swallowing the breath she tries to take to clear the sound of it from her tongue. The scrape of his stubble against her chin is a jagged and familiar itch being scratched, the firm grip of his hands drawing her into his arms an anchor dragging her down—or keeping her from floating away.

She throws her arms around his neck, pushing into the solid wall of his chest and moaning her surrender into his mouth. The growls caught in his throat pulse through her in time with her racing heart, as she lets her head fall back while he lines her throat with wet, rough kisses. One of his hands falls to the slit on her thigh, grasping hold of the bare flesh beneath the parted silk to lift her leg around his waist.

Felicity feels the future falling in on her… She will leap into the arms that could protect her from the world, will let him spread her back over the conference table and trace the neckline of her gown with his lips as he gently slips the straps from her shoulders, will lift her hips so he can slide the lacy thong down her legs to hang precariously from one ankle as he takes her. She will give it all to him, willingly.

And then the world will find them, and it will all end.

So she finds the strength to push her hands against his shoulders, panting for breath as he stumbles back, though he only moves because he feels her pull away. She may not move the world with her every whim, but she can move this giant of a man with a single look.

“Felicity…” he says, voice husky. But what is there to say that hasn’t already been said?

“I can’t.” Her voice only wobbles a little. She stands from the edge of the table, smoothing down the rumpled fabric of her dress. “I won’t throw away everything I’ve worked for—I won’t let you destroy everything _we_ worked for. Do you really think this is worth that?”

His hand grabs her elbow before she can leave, a gentle touch that manages to freeze her without any of the strength she knows he could wield against her.

When she turns back to him, he says in a deep voice, “If I said yes?”

Her eyes search his face, his features etched into desperate sincerity, his hands twitching at his side as he holds them back.

“We can’t…” she whispers, but one little step towards him is enough to jolt him into action, his hands coming up to cup her face. He just holds her there, fingers winding through her hair, pushing aside pins and undoing the hairspray holding it up.

“I love you,” he says simply, as though that is the key to everything.

But she feels the warm metal of his wedding ring against her cheekbone…

And his words can’t unlock the cage of that simple truth.

“Where is she tonight?” she says, not to be petty but because it makes him flinch, shoves him back into the real world from the hazy fantasy that dark empty rooms provide.

He sighs, looking pained, his hands sliding away from her. “At a benefit across town.” Placing his traitorous hands into his pockets, he looks at her with sad eyes as he says, “I’ll leave her.”

“No, you won’t—not when you campaigned on a happy marriage and a young, clean start for this city _a month ago_.”

It had been her idea, even, her spin for the campaign she’d been hired for—to contrast the fickle, irresponsible youth with the steadfast family man he’d become. Until late night strategy sessions and flickering stares across the room had turned into sweeping the clutter off of desks and hastily reknotting ties before press conferences.

No matter how she spun it, anyone hearing of the affair would think it was just Ollie Queen back to his old ways, and his political career would be over. Sometimes even she worried that was all this was…

How could she explain that it was the passionate talks about protecting this city, the way he’d guarded her from the paparazzi with his broad back and sweeping arms, the sparks between their fingertips when she handed him itineraries and poll results? How could she tell the world that what looked like lust and shame was actually…

Love?

“You need to go,” she says, and there’s no hiding the quiver of her voice now. “They’ll start to ask questions, and if anyone saw…”

“Felicity…”

“ _Stop_! Stop saying my name, p-please.” She wipes away the tears slithering down her cheeks, grateful for the darkness hiding her.

But he sees all of her.

He strides forward, stopping when he’s at her shoulder, and says quietly, “This isn’t over.” Then he’s walking out the door and back into the lights of the hallway, the waiting flashes of cameras and sparkle of the elite, all eager to impress their new, handsome, stalwart… _married_ Mayor.

“This never should have started,” she says to the empty room.

On trembling legs she sinks into the nearest chair, resting her forehead against the cool wood of the table as she cries, telling herself through the pain tearing through her chest, “I’m doing the right thing.”

But this is one thing she doesn’t know how to handle.

Her own broken heart.


	5. Where You Lead [Gilmore Girls]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver Queen’s careful routine at the diner he owns is disrupted by Stars Hollow’s newest residents. [Gilmore Girls AU]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grumpy diner owner and chatty coffee lover? Sounds like an Olicity AU to me!! But then again, what doesn’t? :D Probably my last AU one-shot for a while, but I always think that and then here we are.

Oliver Queen likes routine.

He likes the ring of the alarm clock in the dark of early morning, at the same time every day. He likes the sounds of Roy firing up the fryer as he trudges downstairs. He likes knowing when to wake Thea up and have her out at the counter before Babette and Miss Patty arrive, since they always grab his arms and giggle—and he’s pretty sure Babette once tried to lift his shirt when his back was turned. He likes knowing when John Diggle will sit at the counter for his eggs, bacon and coffee each morning, as they talk about baseball scores instead of whatever nonsense Taylor is shouting at him.

He even likes that all his customers are regulars from Stars Hollow, even if it keeps his budget tight every month, because he likes the familiarity—the often ridiculous familiarity.

Ever since he got back from the war, he likes the routine.

But the tiny blonde woman with glasses and the little girl she hauls in behind her are anything but routine.

“ _Please_ tell me you have coffee,” the woman is saying before she even reaches the counter, as the little girl at her side who can’t be older than seven or eight rolls her eyes. “This is a diner, it’s practically the law that you have coffee, right? Except I suppose the only thing you _have_ to have is some form of dining, otherwise it’s a clear case of false advertising, this isn’t a ‘café’—but you _do_ have coffee, right?”

She has barely taken a breath in this muttering tirade, which Oliver isn’t sure was directed at anyone but herself, but she’s up to the counter now and fixes the blue eyes behind her glasses right on him. They widen slightly, taking him in, and he wonders if he has grease stains on his dark green henley.

He’s a bit distracted taking in her appearance as well—the pink blazer over a polka dot top that occasionally flashes a strip of skin above her pencil skirt, her golden hair slicked back into a ponytail that swings behind her head. The girl holding her hand has light brown hair and the same blue eyes, that are now narrowed and watching him carefully, silently. _Sisters?_ He wonders, before he realizes the woman’s eyebrows have lifted, awaiting his response.

“Yeah, we have coffee,” he says, slightly gruff in his haste to get the words out and prove himself not completely mindless.

“Oh, thank God,” she says as she slides onto the counter stool across from him, and the little girl climbs up onto the one beside her. “I’m pretty sure I have now walked around the entire town and I’m already late for work on my first day—did you know this town has at least three stores dedicated to antiques, and yet as far as I can tell only one place that will keep me from drying up and becoming one myself? I need your biggest sized coffee, immediately.”

“Want a menu?” Oliver asks, already pouring coffee into the largest mug in reach, wondering if the dirty rag slung over his shoulder seems unsanitary.

When he slides the mug across to her, he notices the green nail polish on her fingernails as she curls her hands around the mug, lifting it to her bright pink lips with closed eyes and a happy sigh that jolts something warm through his blood.

“I’ll take it,” the little girl says in a resigned voice, as the woman continues in her blissful savoring of the coffee, and Oliver finds his lips curling helplessly into a smile at both of them as he settles the menu into the girl’s tiny hands.

“Oh, sorry, baby, you want something? Mommy’s alive now,” the woman says, setting down her coffee as the little girl flips open the laminated menu.

Oliver’s eyebrows twitch down in a momentary frown—the woman does not look old enough to have a seven-year-old daughter, probably no older than mid twenties herself. Though, of course, he knows it’s more than possible; but it makes him think of Thea, still in high school, flirting with Roy in the kitchens, and he has to strike the irrational anger from his face before the woman looks back up at him.

“Ooh, we could have donuts,” the woman says eagerly. Her eyes have fallen on the glass dish piled with a pyramid of chocolate-glazed donuts, sitting beside the cash register.

“You need something more substantial than that,” Oliver says before he can stop himself.

The woman blinks, a look of surprise on her face, before her eyes narrow and she tilts her head to the side. It’s supposed to be a look of chastisement, he supposes, but he finds himself almost smiling again—and when does _that_ ever happen?

She’s just so… _cute_.

“Is that supposed to be some kind of sales tactic, trying to guilt me into ordering more or something? Because… well, I guess it’s not bad, playing into the whole concerned mom thing, good for you—but you could just put a picture of you and all of _this-_ ” She waves a hand around in his general direction. “-In the window and you’d have all the customers you could ever want.”

Then she freezes, before yanking her hand back in over her face and groaning, “Wait, I did not mean to say that out loud. Please unhear that.”

Now Oliver grins, and he doesn’t try to stop himself.

“I want pancakes,” the little girl says suddenly, and she pokes her head up over the menu she’s holding up in front of her. “Do you have ones with chocolate chips?”

The primness of her little voice doesn’t help Oliver’s attempts to stop smiling like a fool. “Yes, we do.”

“Are you sure that’s substantial enough?” the woman asks, one eyebrow raised.

“How about a side of scrambled eggs?” When she glares at him, he lifts his hands in surrender and adds, “On the house.”

“What do you say, Lizzie? Will you eat some eggs with your pancakes?” the woman asks the girl, who looks as though she’s considering the matter for a few seconds before she nods and hands Oliver the menu. The woman glances down at the phone in her purse, and then shrugs. “I guess I’ll just be even later to work—it’s a Tech Village in the middle of nowhere. I’m pretty sure that guy Kirk can handle the old people coming in to figure out ‘the e-mail.’”

Oliver’s writing down the order to hand to Roy, face still twisted into a small smile, when he feels someone step up beside him.

“Who are you and how did you get my brother to look like that?” Thea asks, standing behind the counter with her hands on her hips and a teasing smile on her lips.

“I’m pretty sure a choir of angels got him to look like that,” the woman blurts out, and then her eyes flutter closed in embarrassment. “Hi, I’m, um, Felicity Smoak, and this is my daughter Lizzie.”

“Really my name is Felicity, too,” the little girl adds, ignoring the look her mother sends her.

“You’re _both_ named Felicity?” Thea asks.

“They really shouldn’t let you name babies while still high on pain meds,” Felicity says with a sigh, as she runs a hand over her daughter’s hair.

“Are you guys just passing through?” Thea’s still tying her apron strings around her waist, tucking a pad of paper into one of the pockets.

“No, we actually just moved here to Stars Hollow,” Felicity replies. “We couldn’t live with Grandma anymore, could we, Liz?”

Lizzie shakes her head, and Oliver can hear her tiny shoes kicking the counter where her feet dangle off the stool. When Thea asks about where Felicity is living, they start chatting happily, Felicity occasionally lifting the mug of coffee to her lips.

Oliver hands the order slip to Roy through the door to the kitchen, watching Thea and Felicity exchange smiles as they talk about her new house a few blocks from here. Normally, his routine would dictate that he disappear into the back to do inventory and get things ready for the lunch rush, safely away from the counter by the time Miss Patty and Babette arrive.

But he finds himself tidying the shelves around the coffee maker, lingering around the register to watch Felicity nod with a swing of her ponytail at something Thea is saying with a sarcastic grin. He watches Lizzie eat the eggs between bites of pancake with a strange feeling of satisfied pride that he doesn’t know how to place. And when he fills Felicity’s mug before she can even ask, the grateful glimmer in her eyes and the quirk of her smile has him… off-balance.

He should hate it. The disruption of his routine, the unfamiliarity of the woman and the feelings she’s already unsettling inside him, the fact that he’s caught by a swarm of townspeople who come in and greet the newcomer—with Miss Patty catching hold of his arm to curl her hand into his elbow and laugh bawdily about how arms like this once lifted her onto a piano in a nightclub after hours.

He should hate that he doesn’t know if he’ll ever see the woman and her daughter again… and how much he _wants_ to, so much that he nearly asks before they disappear with the ringing of the bell above the door.

He should hate that their return later that night for dinner makes his heart leap in his chest.

But he doesn’t.

He feels something else entirely, especially when he tries to suggest salads with their meals and he gets into an argument with Felicity about kale.

After Felicity and her daughter arrive in his life, Oliver’s careful routine is never the same.

And he wouldn’t want it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Now continued in the WIP multi-chapter fic "Where You Lead (I Will Follow)"]


	6. Wild, Foolish Love [Crazy Stupid Love]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity is going to bang that hot guy at the bar. [Crazy Stupid Love AU]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone!! I hope your 2016 is full of good things, happy times, and... Olicity!! <3

When she’s standing in front of the bar, cold rain plastering her hair to the sides of her face, Felicity realizes she’s not sure how she got here. She remembers the grip around the steering wheel of her car that turned her knuckles white, the squeak of the windshield wipers swiping the downpour from her view, the tail lights and stoplights passing in a blur of color through the dark.

But she doesn’t remember when exactly she chose to come _here_.

Her dress starts to cling to her body as the sleek red fabric soaks through with rain, and she rips open the door to step inside with a shiver, trying to summon the heated blaze of anger that propelled her here.

It’s the smell that reminds her first—the clouds of heavy cologne, the lingering wisps of cigarette smoke, the clean scent of leather and wood polish beneath it all. With the dark walls and dim lighting, the clink of ice cubes and slow bass line of sensual music beneath restrained outbreaks of laughter, the place reeks of a certain kind of class and desperation.

And that’s when she knows exactly what part of her brain brought her here.

Even as cold raindrops slither down her nose to fall against her lips, Felicity feels her skin flushing with heat as she strides into the bar. This is like nothing she has ever done—but her hands are curled into fists at her sides, her heart pounding so hard in her chest that she feels it in her fingertips, and she feels _alive_. Everything she hadn’t realized she stopped feeling a long time ago, as she gave _years_ to that…

The anger sharpens the burn of determination that’s fueling her now, as her gaze scans through the shadowy corners of the bar. A few appraising glances turn her way, as she drips water onto the dark wood floor, but most are too wrapped up in their own pursuits for the evening.

Including the man who she finally finds amidst the crowd, standing across the bar with his back towards her—and in the broad expanse of his shoulders beneath the finely tailored suit jacket, the bare hint of shifting muscles behind the dark gray wool, the curve of his bicep stretching his sleeve as he holds the tumbler of vodka in his hand… Felicity finds the courage to do what she came here to do. Even though part of her hadn’t realized it until just this moment.

“You!” she shouts, her voice breaking through the low-pitched hum of flirtation in the room, leaving only the crooning music to challenge the silence that descends. People look up from their overpriced drinks, peering out of booths and turning around on bar stools, all to stare at the sopping wet train wreck in their midst.

But she just watches the back of his head, as the man slowly turns to look over his shoulder—he’s exactly as she remembers. Strong stubbled jaw, soft lips curled into a quickly fading smirk, thick brows drawing low over piercing blue eyes as he frowns in confusion at her.

Then she sees the spark of recognition light his eyes, and she’s already striding across the room.

He spins towards her, still confused, but his face is sharpening into focus by the time she reaches him. And with a single deep breath to calm the sudden twist in her stomach, Felicity grabs a hold of his jaw and pulls herself up into a hard, startling kiss.

She missed, slightly, so that her bottom lip is scraping over stubble as her top lip snags between his, with his mouth parted in surprise as a huff of warm breath spills across her nose. It ends up being a lot sloppier than she’d planned. But just as she would have expected, his free hand comes up to curl around the back of her head, tangling in her damp hair, tilting her head back at just the right angle to deepen the kiss perfectly. His other arm wraps around the small of her back, the glass in his hand digging into her hip as he pulls her in against his chest.

As she tastes the expensive vodka on his tongue, feels his thumb swipe through the slick rain still left on her cheek, Felicity loses the train of thought that led her to this moment. There only exists the now, the heat melting through her, the surprising safety in his arms. When they part, both taking slightly heavy breaths, her eyes stay closed for several long seconds.

It is the most passionate, intimate kiss she has ever experienced.

And she doesn’t even know his name.

It had been a couple weeks before, meeting Iris for drinks near her office, when they’d stumbled into this bar. For Iris, it was a swanky bar with a nicer clientele than the dives by her apartment, a chance to meet someone who might have their life somewhat together; for Felicity, it was a twenty-dollar Appletini and a flashback to her childhood when the waitress passed by in a thick fog of perfume.

Until the man circling the room had stopped at their table, like a vulture deigning to land on his selected prey. Iris hadn’t seen him that way, dark eyes widening as they swept up and down his tall frame, but other than a polite smile he had kept his gaze fixed on Felicity.

Who’d been… well, “unimpressed” wouldn’t be entirely accurate, since the guy was _ridiculously_ hot. But she’d been happily unavailable (at the time), and besides, he’d swooped in on them with a cheesy line and a smirk that made him look more pleased with himself than with anything he might see in her.

There had only been one moment—he’d given some line about being stuck on a waiting list (some smarmy response to not getting her number), and she’d blurted out how he should find someone to get him off, stumbling over the hasty addition that she meant off _the waiting list_ or whatever nonsense metaphor they’d fallen into—and, for just a second, he’d faltered. His eyes had swept over her again as though seeing her for the first time, and he huffed out a breath through a smile that was… genuine. After that, he’d been different, clumsier and more earnest, even if still couched in a pattern of practiced douchebaggery like it was the only dance he knew. Yet there’d been something there…

When she thought back to that night, when she’d tried _not_ to think about the random hot guy at the bar, that was the moment she remembered.

Well, that, and the way his eyebrow ticked upwards on one side as he smirked down at her. Even though she swore smug frat boys did nothing for her, that had been… something.

She’d been with Ray, though, happy and comfortable—and how could random sleazy guys compete with a man so accomplished and intelligent? They could talk for hours about schematics and processing speed and the virtues of copper wiring; she hadn’t realized that, for a long time, she’d been mistaking passionate discussions of component compatibility for _actual_ passion and compatibility.

But she’d thought this was it, this was the man she belonged with, someone whose ambitions matched her own so perfectly. Their career steps were in sync, so that their advancing relationship never interfered with graduations and promotions and upsizing apartments. Contemplating marriage was simply the next step, the next line of code to unlock the next expected commands, and this was the time.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d been counting on it, _excited_ for it, in the tiny part of herself that hadn’t been filed away behind hard drives and coding languages—until it didn’t happen. The fancy dinner, the glasses of champagne, the suggestion that she be prepared to call her mother… Felicity had worn the red dress that zipped all the way around the back, the one that left most of her leg and thigh bare, the one that Ray hadn’t even commented upon as he met her at the restaurant after work.

As he told her about the company he was starting… and offered her the job of Vice President.

Felicity will have time, later, to really think about everything she felt in that moment—all the things that were fair, and the things that were unfair. How the flash of hot and cold as her stomach plummeted was really her own fault, for setting up such expectations (and how the “Yes” she would have given him was always doomed to fall apart eventually, possibly after an expensive wedding and an even more expensive divorce). How being offered the position of VP in a promising start-up tech company at only 25 was actually a huge compliment, and meant to give her an opportunity, not a slam to her own individual accomplishments. How the argument that spiraled out of control, about the way he treated her like an asset, had always treated her like an award to be achieved and then kept on a shelf, was really about the way they’d been colleagues more than a couple for too long (maybe forever).

How the anger that burns in her veins now isn’t directed at Ray at all… but at herself, for building her life like a program to be completed, and getting upset when the only thing it spit out was a string of cold numbers that didn’t add up to what she thought she wanted.

Somehow, her brain turned that anger into a command to go bang the hot guy at the bar. _Critical malfunction—hard drive overheating._ Felicity leaned into the heat and let it sear her clean… of everything.

“Do you remember me?” she murmurs, as she slowly drifts away from Hot Guy, who stares down at her with his eyebrows drawn together. There’s none of that smug smirk now, his face in harsh lines as his gaze sweeps across her, his hand still cradling her neck. She’s not sure if it’s confusion or… lust, in his eyes, but she’s shivering again. “I know I look different, I’m all… wet.”

He blinks, his fingers twitching in her hair, and yeah, she’s gonna say that’s lust. “Yes,” he says huskily, and she’d forgotten how deep his voice could be. In her sudden shifting against him, she realizes how closely their hips are pressed together.

“And you… I mean, you seemed interested last time, you’re still… interested? In me? For sex?” She closes her eyes with a groan, muttering, “That last part was definitely not necessary.”

He laughs, and there it is, that genuine smile turning his already handsome face into something that has her knees trembling. “Oh, I think it was absolutely necessary,” he says, then grows serious. “And yes.”

“…Okay,” she says on a long exhaled breath. She can’t decide if the way her stomach churns is pleasant or wrenching, but her hands have slid down to the lapels of his suit and the solid breadth of muscles beneath it and _she is doing this_. She might say out loud, “I am doing this,” while stabbing her fingers into his chest, and it’s probably a good sign that he chuckles again rather than running the other way.

_God_ , it’s a sexy sound. She might just enjoy this. A lot.

“Would you like to get out of here?” he says, voice low. His fingers are combing loose strands of wet hair behind her ear, brushing against her industrial piercing, and Felicity might release a tiny whimper as she nods.

She doesn’t notice the girl glaring at her from the table beside them, seeing her potential prize ripped out of her grasp, or the others in the bar watching them leave (and newly reinvigorated in their own search for the night). She’s mostly focusing on staying balanced on her spiky high heels as she follows him down the dark hall, hand wrapped entirely in his as he guides her, his other hand sliding his half-empty glass onto a random table as they pass.

She’s going home with a stranger, with the hot guy from the bar. She’s going to have random, meaningless sex. She’s reckless, off-script, normal functions crashing as the virus runs rampant through her system.

And it feels _amazing_.

XXXXX

Felicity paces back and forth in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, reminding herself with every click of her heels against the polished concrete floor why she’s here. Some of that heady, overwhelming yearning had faded in her drive here, in the mechanical voice of the GPS directing her towards her impending sin, in the practicality of finding guest parking (she’s not going to be stuck at some stranger’s house without a quick getaway, she’s not that far gone). But she listens to the sounds of him mixing her a drink in his kitchen, and she stares out at the sparkling skyline, and she feels the slowly drying fabric of her dress sliding against her skin—to remind herself she is a grown woman who can enjoy this.

He steps back into view, holding out a glass of some dark liquor with an orange peel floating in it; as she takes it with a quiet, “Thank you,” she remembers that they still don’t know each other’s names. With gulping swallows that burn and revolt in her throat, she downs the drink and coughs a little as she wipes the overflow from the corners of her lips. It was a drink made to be sipped and savored, but Hot Guy just watches her with that surprised smile of his… that’s starting to look less surprised the longer he’s with her.

“So, um, do we do it now?” she asks, handing the empty glass right back to him. He grins, as her hands flutter in front of her; she’s unsure exactly what to do with them. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I mean, I know what I’m doing _here_ , obviously, but I just… I don’t do guys like you—I mean things like this, often, _ever_ , and I assume you do, you know, do this. A lot. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, that’s pretty much why I’m here, to be with the hot guy at the bar who-”

“Whoa, whoa,” he says, shaking his head as his grin widens, and Felicity finally takes a breath. “Let’s just start with names. I’m Oliver.”

“Felicity. Smoak.” She blurts out the last name automatically, before she can corral her thoughts enough to stop it.

But before she can flinch and take it back (as if that’s somehow possible), Oliver smiles and repeats softly, “Felicity Smoak.”

Her stomach flutters for an entirely different reason, as she presses her hands flat against her belly to keep from lunging towards him, while he turns to set the glasses down on the nearby table. This seems a lot more… doable, suddenly.

When he turns back towards her, she can’t stifle the smile that flits across her face even by biting her bottom lip. It’s a mix of eagerness and nerves and uncertainty, as heat rises in her cheeks and she shifts her weight on her heels.

“We can just talk, for a while,” he offers, sensing her nerves, hovering a few feet away. At any other time, it would be a kind gesture, something to ease her fears and make this about more than what it is. Right now, that’s the last thing she wants.

“No,” she says, so fiercely that he blinks. “I didn’t come here to talk, I talk too much, that’s part of the problem. I came here to do. You.”

His eyebrows shoot up, and then he laughs through the bright flash of his grin. A _real_ smile, and it somehow makes him even more handsome, when she hadn’t thought that was possible. “Felicity,” he says, almost under his breath. “You are… not what I expected.”

“I don’t even want to know what that means,” she says, and it’s true, she doesn’t. He probably expected her to be clingy or prudish or some cold corporate fish to be won over with his charms, and she wants no part of that. She is a reckless, sexy woman just having some fun. The longer they linger here, _talking_ , the more her brain keeps trying to butt in and shriek all of the potential consequences of this at her—for once, she doesn’t want to _think_. “Can we just… can you… do your moves or whatever? Please.”

“My moves?”

“You know, put on sexy music, arm around the back of the couch, start taking off your clothes, _something_.” She feels like she’s about to start pacing again, and he watches her with the lines around his eyes crinkled in a smile. He’s entirely too good-looking, what was she thinking… No, that’s exactly it. That’s why she’s here.

“Yes. Take off your shirt,” she demands, because he has draped his suit jacket over the back of a chair, and the crisp white shirt beneath (as well as the sleeves rolled up to his elbows) shows off just enough of his physique to make her mind stutter—and if it’s off, it will stop working altogether.

“What? Just… now?” he asks, and that one damn eyebrow has gone up again, so she’s a little harsher than necessary when she shouts back, “ _Yes_ … please.”

Oliver starts by loosening the tie from his neck, pulling it down from the collar to hang haphazardly against his chest, and Felicity’s already swallowing thickly as she watches. There’s something startlingly intimate about standing here just watching him pop the buttons of his shirt, even though he’s not doing any of the cheesy stripper moves she might have expected. Instead, he’s focusing on his task, looking down at the shirt he’s tugging free from the waistband of his slacks… how is that even hotter? As his shoulders twist and roll to free his arms from the shirt, she inhales deeply, still feeling like she’s running out of air.

And that’s before he drops the linen shirt over the couch, and tugs the white undershirt over his head in one swift movement—

Revealing broad, rippling muscles that shift with his every movement, from the vein along his bicep when he tosses the t-shirt aside to the twitching of his abs as he stands in front of her and awaits her judgment. As he straightens his spine and waits quietly, firmly and solidly in front of her, she would think he had not a shred of self-doubt (and why would he?). But when she’s finally able to tear her eyes from caressing every bare inch of his chest, she finds his face is pensive, slightly guarded, watching her in return.  

All that manages to come tumbling out of her mouth in reassurance is, “Oh, _fuck_.”

This at least chases the seriousness from his face, half his mouth curling up in that smirk, and he jerks his chin towards her. “Alright, now you.”

“Nope, uh-uh, I don’t think so,” she says, hand automatically falling down to cling to the zipper on her thigh and assure herself it’s still as far down as it can go. “Not with all that going on—any chance you’re one of those secretly kinky billionaires that likes to wear blindfolds? I mean, if it’s like leather and whips I’m going to need about ten more of those drinks, but if-”

“Felicity,” he says, and already she knows she’s addicted to the way he says her name. His eyes sweep briefly up and down her body, from the straps around her ankles holding on her heels to the tangled mess of her slowly-drying hair, and somehow it isn’t leering at all. He manages complete sincerity when he says, “You’re beautiful.”

He’s shirtless, and he’s saying these things, and even though she knows it’s about the most basic line in history, she still finds herself almost crossing the room to throw herself on him. But instead she waves her hand flippantly and says, “Oh, that’s mostly the dress. So, you know, as long as I stay in it, sure…”

He steps towards her, and instinctively, she backs up a step. It’s _a lot_ coming at her, and he freezes, frowning.

Before he can offer to just _talk_ again, because somehow she’s starting to think he might be a nice enough guy to actually mean it, Felicity takes a deep breath and flings herself across the few feet of distance between them. He catches her awkwardly against him, since she half stepped on his foot and stumbles against his chest, clinging to his shoulders and digging her stubby nails into the unbelievably firm (and _warm_ ) flesh.

“Wow, you’re so… hard,” she breathes, trying to straighten her quivering knees, as his arms wind around her back and lift her up against him. With a shaky little giggle, she lets him hold her, reveling in the overwhelming strength in his frame as it wraps around her. “Is this your move?”

“Being hard?” he asks, with a glint of mischief in his eyes. “I find it helps things along, yeah.”

Her face is inches from his, as she stares into those light blue eyes, and the humor drops slowly from his face as he stares back. She can just feel the tickle of his breath against her cheek, can smell the faint linger of citrus from the drink, and his hands are warm and gentle as he holds her weight easily in his grasp, one hand at the top of her thigh just beneath the curve of her ass. She hadn’t realized how much she was leaning on him, how close she is… to a stranger.

“I don’t know anything about you,” she says, as her hands slide absentmindedly across his collarbone. Something about the touch or her quiet words makes him shift against her, the moment of levity replaced with something uncertain in his face.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” His voice is a rough whisper, his hand tightening around her thigh. If she said the word, he would carry her up to bed and they could have the meaningless encounter she wanted. It would probably be great—no, _fantastic_ , if the hot, coiled strength of his body and the growing bulge pressed against her is any indication.

So why, when she stares at him, is she starting to see more than the unbelievably handsome lines of his face—but the person behind them? A person she doesn’t know…

But kind of wants to.

“What’s your last name?” she asks, aware that it’s an odd question for such an intimate position, standing in the middle of his grand loft apartment. Yet maybe just a surface amount of interpersonal interaction would help end the creeping feelings in her gut.

Except, apparently, it’s not surface level at all, because he tenses beneath her hands. Then, with a sigh, he says, “Queen.”

“Wait… like Queen Consolidated?” She jerks back against his hold, and with a wry twist of his lips, he lets her stumble back onto her own two feet. “You’re _Ollie Queen_?”

Really, she should have put it together before this, if she wanted to claim she was intelligent. Her only excuse is that she has little time for tabloids and gossip when she’s writing code and hunting for the perfect job to suit the next stage of her career—but the expensive suit, the amazing loft, the cocky frat boy named _Oliver_? Yeah, okay, as far as she can recall, he hasn’t been in the news in years, head down and focused on working at his father’s company—but still, she was supposed to be good at puzzles and equations, and this was 2+2-level obvious.

“I don’t really go by that anymore,” he says, and the way his shrug moves his shoulders has her rethinking her desire to talk.

“Still trolling bars for girls, though,” she says before she can stop herself.

“Classier bars, at least—and classier girls,” he says with a humorless smile; she would almost take it as some kind of slight, if it weren’t entirely true that she came here to hook up with him without even knowing his name, so she’s not exactly in a great position to judge. He looks away, adding more quietly, “It’s the only thing I’m good at.”

“I don’t know, you’re pretty good at looking like that,” she says, though she realizes it may not be the most reassuring thing she could have said in this moment—no matter how true it is. “And, um, making drinks, that was really delicious.” Okay, that’s not much better.

“Thank you,” he says, and his smile is at least a little closer to that genuine moment earlier.

Felicity looks around the loft, trying to find something more to him than booze and debauchery, eyes flitting from one sleek and tasteful piece of art to another. “And your taste is… This place is amazing.”

“Mostly my mother’s and my sister’s choices,” he says—but it isn’t self-deprecation or self-pity in his tone, it’s… pride. Like hearing them complimented is worth more than a compliment to himself, and that surprises her.

“You’re close with your family, then?” She leans against the back of the couch nearby, just to ease the growing ache in her feet now that she’s back to carrying her own weight, and within seconds, Oliver sits there next to her.

“Yeah,” he says, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, and it does miraculous things for the ridges of his abdomen. But she focuses on his face (somehow), watching the emotions play over his profile. “We’ve had our rough patches, my parents especially, but they have always been there for me and my sister. And Thea… I would do anything for her.”

“I wish I had a big brother—it’s just me and my mom, and let me tell you, I would give _anything_ for someone to share that burden, because she is just…”

And somehow, without even realizing it, Felicity finds herself talking to Oliver… for hours. She kicks off her heels and flips over onto the couch itself, as he lounges back against the armrest and teases her when she loses her train of thought. They talk about work, about how he’s struggling to prove himself as worthy of his father’s company, as more than his tabloid past; about how she’s trying to find the best way to use the skills she loves, while no one can get past her age or gender. That leads to Ray, of course, and he listens to her rant with a patient understanding that shows her once again how little she knows about him; he’s unfazed even when she tears up, as the depth of just how messed up her relationship had been sinks in (he only looks upset at her pain, and tells her in calm tones that she’s remarkable and can do so much better—and she knows it’s not a line about him, because he looks like the last person he’s thinking of for that role is himself). He tells her about the ex-girlfriend who he cheated on with her sister, confessing that sin with his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, and then she makes him laugh when she says something about boats and being wet making you do crazy things and she can’t even begin to talk herself out of that one.

At first, she thinks it must be the “stranger” thing that has her opening up like this, feeling like she can confess her sins, because when is she ever going to see him again? But as the night goes on, as they sink into the cushions of the luxurious couch and their voices fade with fatigue, she tells him things because she wants to hear what he thinks, or listen to him laugh, or see if he feels the same.

And she realizes, when she watches him close his eyes as she talks, hovering on the edge of sleep, that she’s already wondering what he’d say about her meeting on Friday (nothing like the cold logic Ray would apply to the situation, useful as it may be; there’s something about the way Oliver already seems to support her and believe in her, offering to help even when he knows he can’t, that feels like so much _more_ ). She wonders whether he’s seen her favorite TV shows because they haven’t gotten to that yet, or how his presentation at the end of the month is going to turn out because she has an idea on how to help him.

She wants to keep talking… and then do unspeakable things to his body, of course, but mixed in with lots and lots of talking—and she gets the strangely powerful sense that he feels the same, even as he dozes with his head thrown back against the couch cushions. His arm is thrown out to his side, hand resting on her bare knee, and he never once tried to slide it up her thigh. She traces her fingertips across the back of his knuckles, and he makes a small contented sound in his throat without opening his eyes; somehow, in one night, it’s a moment more soft and loving than she’s felt in years.

She goes quiet as he falls asleep, still bare-chested and gorgeous, and she pulls the cashmere throw blanket around his shoulders. “Good night, Oliver,” she whispers, because she knows his name now, and she presses a chaste kiss against his cheek.

As she tucks herself against him, nestling against his shoulder as he shifts groggily to hold her, Felicity’s not exactly sure how she got here.

But somehow… she already knows she’s going to stay.


	7. Queen of Mind [X-Men]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver has a gift for coming back from the dead, but this time he’s not alone. [X-Men AU] (SPOILERS - in the sense that I used a character element shared with the AU that is itself a spoiler)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is how my brain randomly decided to process the spoilers from Friday. It’s no indication of my feelings either way (I’m very much in the wait-and-see camp), but this AU popped into my head and here we are. Just a fun little drabble. :) [Made more fun by the fact that the Queen Manor and X-Men school are the same building!]

Waking from the other side is always the same, no matter how he’s sent there. Bullets and broken necks and swords through the chest all end in the same empty darkness, and the world returns slowly in a familiar dawn of light and sound. He’s never sure where he is when he wakes, but the routine is the same.

First comes the thunder of his heartbeat returning to his blood; then, the heat sliding back into his fingers and toes as they twitch with life. The expansion of his lungs draws in a sudden gasp of air, and with it, the smells of the room—this time, antiseptic and metal and bleach. Sounds come slowly, the hum of fluorescents and the shudder of X-ray sheets and the scrape of surgical tools against the tray.

Finally, he can feel the skin and muscles and bones of his body again, his nervous system flaring fully to life as he takes a moment to categorize his surroundings. He’s on a hard metal table, cool beneath his back, with a crisp sheet draped over his lower half (morgue? It’s not the first time, but he usually comes back too quickly for that). He tastes sharp iron on his tongue; his lips and chin are sticky and cracked with dried blood—

And that’s when he remembers. _Darhk_.

Oliver sits up abruptly, ignoring the scream of the attendant as she stumbles back, the tools clattering loudly against the floor as she knocks over the tray. The muscles of his chest tense almost painfully beneath his bare skin as his body lurches back into readiness. But he’s still squinting against the bright lights, his limbs still slow to respond, his legs sliding to dangle from the edge of the table but not yet strong enough to support his weight.

The doors swing open wildly, as a blonde woman hurries in and crouches over the fallen attendant. She gapes at Oliver with wide blue eyes, then seems to shift into preparedness as her crouch turns to something almost feral.

“No, wait, Sara—it’s okay,” the attendant says, her hand on the blonde woman’s arms. “He just startled me, that’s all.”

“I thought he was dead,” Sara says, her voice smoky as she watches Oliver with narrow eyes.

“He was,” the attendant says, and Sara helps her to stand as she shakes the brown waves of hair out of her eyes. “This must be his mutation.”

“ _Immortality_?” Sara’s eyebrows go up. “The Professor will want to see this.”

“ _Thea_ ,” Oliver finally barks, his voice gravelly and rough through his dry throat. “I…” Unable to get more words out quickly enough, he resorts to a frustrated growl.

“The girl you were with?” the attendant asks, taking a few steps towards him. “She’s all right, she’s with the Professor now. Though someone should tell her you’re still alive.”

“Darhk… He…” Oliver starts to say, with a cough to clear his throat. Sara approaches at the attendant’s side, and hands him a plastic cup of water with a half-smile of sympathy. He takes a long drink, then splashes the water through the stubble on his jaw, washing the blood away.

“Damien Darhk?” the attendant asks. As she speaks, she holds out a hand and a clipboard across the room floats into her grasp, followed by a pen that she snags from the air with her other hand. She starts taking notes, as though this is an everyday occurrence—which, for her, it undoubtedly is. Oliver is past being surprised by mutants, but he can still appreciate the wonder of it.

Oliver remembers only scattered pieces of the last moments before the darkness, as sometimes happens with his more traumatic deaths. There was the snow across the wooded road, the silent hush of the falling flurries as the man in the black suit walked slowly towards them. Blond hair, blue eyes, and a smug smile as he demanded Thea come with him—as he wielded a power unlike any mutation Oliver had ever seen. One outstretched hand from several feet away had closed in on Oliver’s throat with a grip that felt like dry ice, scorching him with cold from the inside out as he spit up blood that dribbled down his chin.

All of his strength and training had collapsed within his frozen body like a house of cards. It’s the last thing he remembers, those invisible chains of weakness constricting as his mind fell to that same old darkness, and it must have been what took so long for him to come back.

And Thea standing behind him, wrapped in her hooded cloak and screaming out his name…

“ _That’s_ who Digg and Roy saved you from?” Sara asks, and her hard edges soften with shock and possibly even fear. She exchanges a look with the attendant, and expels a long breath. “I’ll go get the Professor—are you going to be okay alone with him, Laurel?”

But Laurel’s answer is interrupted by the doors opening, and they all fall silent as they turn towards the newcomers.

First in are two men, one short with a sullen gaze, the other tall and powerfully built who looks at Oliver and blinks several times as he pauses in mid-stride.

“The sister told you he could do that,” the short man says to the tall man in a flat tone, but the tall man only replies with wide eyes, “Still… I mean… he was _dead_.”

“Ooh, this is going to be fun, I can tell,” says a voice nearing from the hall, and then Oliver has eyes for no one else.

The wheels glide soundlessly across the tile floor, the slick metal lines of the chair gleaming beneath the fluorescents as the wheelchair rolls to a stop in the center of the room. But all of that is lost to Oliver’s peripheral vision, as his gaze is caught by the sharp blue eyes behind black glasses and the smile twisting the woman’s plump red lips. The cleavage revealed by the cutout in her vibrantly colored dress also snags his attention for a long second, and he would feel worse about it if he didn’t look up to see her own glance slowly trickling down the lines and scars on his chest.

“Hello, Oliver Queen,” the woman says as her chair slides closer to the table where he sits. Even as her chin tilts back to take him in, he somehow feels like he’s looking at a queen upon her throne. “I am Felicity Smoak, a professor at this school.”

“ _The_ Professor,” the shorter man mutters, and Sara smirks with a nod.

“School?” Oliver asks, having to clear his throat again, though the sudden dryness comes not from death but from a stark reminder of how alive he still is. He looks around at the medical supplies throughout the room, the advanced technology blinking from the walls.

“A school for gifted youngsters,” she says. “Though we’re happy to take in those of any age who show signs of a gift—and you and your sister are nothing if not extremely gifted.” Now her gaze is sweeping up and down his body with a narrow and more calculating look, pausing on the scars just over his heart, as she leans closer in her chair. “Interesting that your astounding healing abilities don’t extend to the prevention of scars… not that they don’t look good—I mean, not _good_ , they just… they give you a certain rugged, um, quality…” She fidgets with her glasses, sitting back hastily as she falls silent.

“My sister, Thea, where is she?” he asks through the sudden urge to smile, his earlier urgency fading somewhat. He has no reason to trust these strangers, but an odd calm rests over his mind like a heavy blanket.

“She is resting, but I can have someone bring her here if you’d like,” Felicity says, and he nods. She lifts her fingers to her temple, her face blank as she blinks. Then she smiles and says, “She’ll be here in a few minutes.”

Oliver knows better than to ask—after all, he was dead a few minutes ago. But he starts to suspect the calm radiating through him is coming from this woman in front of him. It’s nothing like the cold grasp of Darhk’s powers seeping into his bones, but he still finds himself struggling against it.

“Could you all give us a moment?” Felicity asks suddenly, and when the others begin to protest (mostly for her safety, it seems), she gets a sharp and focused look in her eyes. One by one they fall silent, shaking their heads as they walk out of the room almost in unison.

When the room is empty of everyone but them, she looks at him with a warm compassion in her eyes. “I’m sorry I tried to calm you, sometimes it’s automatic for me—but I can sense your distress,” she says. “I’m a telepath.”

“Oh,” he says, unable to summon any other words as he shuts his thoughts down to emptiness. “So you can read my mind?”

“I try not to do so uninvited,” she says with a smile. “Though, if you don’t mind, I’d like to-”

“ _No,_ ” he says abruptly. He still can’t close his eyes without drowning in the memories of the island, of blood splattering across his hands, of the years caught in one web after another as the spiders feasted on his power. He finally made it back home to his family, to Thea, but his mind has not yet come with him.

And he won’t drag anyone else into that particular darkness with him.

“Okay,” she says softly, gently, hands held out. “But I would like to see your memories of Darhk for myself—if I promise not to go any further back than earlier today, would that be okay?”

“I don’t know…”

“Oliver.” Her eyes are kind and warm as she says his name, and the sound of it on her lips echoes through his ears as it sends a pleasant shiver down his spine. “I can help you.”

He closes his eyes, hands clenching around the edge of the table, holding the sheet still draped across him firmly in place. Every time he crosses that endless night, he wonders what he’s leaving behind. And those five years on and off the island were one long night…

“Maybe we should start by getting you some clothes,” Felicity says, deliberately not looking towards his lower half. “I can find some pants—and a shirt, if you want, but if you didn’t, that would be okay with me—I mean, school policy allows for shirtlessness… at least, it does now…”

“Pants would be good,” he says, this time unable to fight the grin spreading across his face, and she glides across the room towards a series of drawers against the wall. She tosses him the dark scrubs and stays turned away, swiping across screens and typing rapidly as he drops the sheet and shimmies into the pants. He walks over to grab another glass of water, and sees her peek over her shoulder before swiveling the whole chair back towards him.

He hears rather than sees the chair jerk to a stop almost immediately, as the weight of her stare falls across his bare back… and all the scars ravaging his skin.

“Excessive trauma,” he says in a low voice, almost to himself, except he knows she can hear him. “Small wounds heal completely, and I always survive… but excessive trauma leaves a mark.”

It’s the story of his life, written in an alphabet of old wounds and rough tissue across his body. He’s the only one who can completely decode its secrets, but even a stranger can read the pain carved into him like commandments on a stone tablet.

Oliver turns around slowly, awaiting the pity or fear or judgment in her eyes… but there’s only a soft thoughtfulness as her eyebrows crease.

“You have lived more lives than I can fathom, Oliver,” she says quietly. “And not just because of your gift.” She draws closer to him, looking up with a mix of sympathy and determination that stirs something in his gut. “Let’s make this one the beginning of a new story.”

He’s not sure if she was reading his mind or if she sees the same things in his scars that he does, but the words pulse through him as he releases a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“We can start by finishing Darhk before he can threaten your sister again.” There’s anger in her voice as she tightens her grip on the edge of her armrests; he wonders for the first time just how she knows Darhk. But he’s more shaken by the “we,” something he hadn’t asked for and never expected, and he’s not used to thinking of himself as anything but a lone soldier fighting to survive, to protect his family.

And here is this woman pledging to fight with him when she barely knows him. Part of him resists it, wanting no one (but for some reason, especially not her) anywhere near this… near _him_.

The rest of him feels a weight lift from his shoulders, and for the first time in longer than he’d realized, he can breathe.

“If you wouldn’t mind, could you kneel?” she asks matter-of-factly, even as he detects a hint of self-consciousness in the way she looks away. He drops immediately to one knee, and it’s not condescending; it is supplication, a knight before his queen, awaiting her command.

He’s so close he could reach out and feel the smooth skin of her bare knees and the curves of her calves. Before he can stop himself, Oliver imagines dragging his fingertips down her shins to slide around the straps of her high heels, down to the tiny painted toenails peeking through. He wonders if she’d feel it, and how high he would have to press kisses up the trail of her inner thigh before she would gasp.

When she leans forward in her chair, he nearly jerks away as he remembers with a wave of cold down his spine that she is a _mind reader_ and might be a bit uncomfortable with the incredibly impure thoughts spilling through his mind at this moment. But she doesn’t seem to have noticed, as she reaches out to frame his face in her hands.

The touch of her warm fingertips against his temples sparks something in his blood, his heart beating faster, even as the lust fades slowly away into something… else. Her face is a few inches from his, and Oliver nearly stops breathing as her eyes fix on his.

“Now, this may feel a little strange at first, but don’t fight it,” she says, almost whispering. “I promise I will not go any further back than today, but to make sure that happens, you have to let me in—you have to trust me. I know you don’t know me, but… can you do that?”

For a long moment, they just stare at each other. He smells the subtle perfume on the wrist and the mint on her breath, hears the thick swallow in her throat, feels the slight trembling of her fingers as she holds her hands with only a sliver of air between them and his cheeks.

Her presence washes over him in waves… the same as waking from the dark, the light of her dawning over him like a new world.

“I trust you,” he murmurs. “…Felicity.”

The sound of her name makes her blink, and she bites her bottom lip as she smiles.

Then, with a deep breath, she closes her eyes and presses her fingers a little more firmly against his temples.

At first, he feels nothing other than the cautious probing of his own thoughts. Then images begin to flicker through his mind like a movie being projected from outside, and his instinct is to challenge it, pausing or rewinding or leaping ahead. He fights the instinct instead, letting himself fall passive—having to restrain the dark emotion that arises when he sees Darhk, hears him once again demand Thea and her gift like a prize. Felicity’s presence is a hand guiding him gently down a long hall, moving through the corners of her mind with a calm power that he doesn’t want to resist.

In fact, he wants… more. And that thought, that awakening feeling, jerks her out of his mind so quickly that she actually jolts backward in her chair.

She blinks, gaping at him, color flushing across her cheeks.

He wants to apologize, wants to say something that shows how much he didn’t mean that… but she knows. More than he could even admit to himself.

They’re spared from any awkward follow-ups by the doors bursting open and Thea running in, throwing her arms around Oliver as he stands (carefully, her arms covered in extra long sleeves, as her touch is just as dangerous to him as anyone else). He pulls back, making sure she’s okay, as Felicity turns to speak with the shorter man who’d guided Thea here.

But Oliver can’t help looking over Thea’s head at the woman across the room, the ponytail swinging as she gestures animatedly, her hands smoothing the hem of her skirt down her motionless thighs. His attention lingers on the bare skin just beyond her fingertips, and when he looks back up, she’s watching him with a knowing glance and a smile through her blush.

Lusting after a mind reader is… _complicated_ , he decides. Yet, as he finds himself smirking back at her, he knows it will be worth it.

He cannot die—but maybe, for the first time, he can finally _live_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! :D


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